The Last of Us
The Last of Us is an action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment on June 14, 2013 for the PlayStation 3. The plot revolves around the main protagonist, a smuggler called Joel, escorting a teenage girl called Ellie across a post-apocalyptic Unites States of America in the hopes of creating a cure for a fungal disease that has taken the lives and bodies of the majority of the human population. Following its announcement in December 2011, The Last of Us was widely anticipated. Upon release, it received universal acclaim, with praise directed at its narrative, gameplay, visual and sound design, characterization, and depiction of female characters. The Last of Us became one of the best-selling games on the PlayStation 3, selling over 1.3 million units in its first week and 17 million by April 2018. The game also contains a multiplayer mode called Factions, in which players join clans of other players in a battle to kill the players in the other factions. The game was also remastered for the PlayStation 4 (simply called The Last of Us: Remastered) in July 2014, and includes an extra side-story which involves Ellie and her best friend Riley during the post-apocalyptic events of the game. A sequel, The Last of Us: Part II, was announced in December 2016 and is scheduled for release on February 21, 2020 for the PlayStation 4. Gameplay The Last of Us is an action-adventure survival horror game played from a third-person perspective. The player traverses across post-apocalyptic environments such as towns, buildings, forest and sewers to advance the story. The player can use firearms, improvised weapons, and stealth to defend against hostile humans and cannibalistic creatures infected by a mutated strain of the Cordyceps fungus. For most of the game, the player takes control of Joel, a man tasked with escorting a young girl, Ellie, across the United States; Ellie and other companions are controlled by the artificial intelligence. The player also controls Ellie throughout the game's winter segment. In combat, the player can use long-range weapons, such as rifles, shotguns, and bows, and short-range weapons such as handguns and short-barrelled shotgun. The player is able to scavenge limited-use melee weapons, such as pipes and baseball bats, and throw bottles and bricks to distract, stun, or attack enemies. The player can upgrade weapons at workbenches using collected items. Equipment such as health kits and Molotov cocktails can be found or crafted using collected items. Attributes such as the health meter and crafting speed can be upgraded by collecting pills and medicinal plants. Health can be recharged through the use of health kits. Though the player can attack enemies directly, they can also use stealth to attack undetected or sneak by them. "Listen Mode" allows the player to locate enemies through a heightened sense of hearing and spatial awareness, indicated as outlines visible through walls and objects. In the dynamic cover system, the player can crouch behind obstacles to gain a tactical advantage during combat. The game features periods without combat, often involving conversation between the characters. The player can solve simple puzzles, such as using floating pallets to move Ellie, who is unable to swim, across bodies of water, and using ladders or dumpsters to reach higher areas. Story collectibles, such as notes, maps and comics, can be scavenged and viewed in the backpack menu. The game features an artificial intelligence system by which hostile human enemies react to combat. If enemies discover the player, they may take cover or call for assistance, and can take advantage of the player when they are distracted, out of ammunition, or in a fight. Player companions, such as Ellie, can assist in combat by throwing objects at threats to stun them, announcing the location of unseen enemies, or using a knife and pistol to attack enemies. Multiplayer The online multiplayer allows up to eight players to engage in competitive gameplay in recreations of multiple single-player settings. The game features three multiplayer game types: Supply Raid and Survivors are both team deathmatches, with the latter excluding the ability to respawn; Interrogation features teams investigating the location of the enemy team's lockbox, and the first to capture such lockbox wins. In every mode, players select a faction—Hunters (a group of hostile survivors) or Fireflies (a revolutionary militia group)—and keep their clan alive by collecting supplies during matches. Each match is equal to one day; by surviving twelve "weeks", players have completed a journey and can re-select their Faction. Killing enemies, reviving allies, and crafting items earn the player parts that can be converted to supplies; parts can also be scavenged from enemies' bodies. Players are able to carry more equipment by earning points as their clan's supplies grow. Players can connect the game to their Facebook account, which alters clan members' names and faces to match the players' Facebook friends. Players have the ability to customize their characters with hats, helmets, masks, and emblems. Plot In September 2013, an outbreak of a mutated Cordyceps fungus infects and ravages the United States, transforming its human hosts into aggressive monstrous creatures known simply as the Infected. In the small suburbs of Austin, Texas, a man named Joel flees the horrifying chaos with his brother Tommy and his daughter Sarah after their neighbours become Infected. While trying to escape, a soldier appears and shoots at Joel and Sarah, thinking they are Infected. Joel is wounded but Sarah dies in Joel's arms. Twenty years later, the mutated fungus has infected and destroyed most of humanity, with the survivors living and working in heavily policed quarantine zones, independent settlements and nomadic, sometimes vicious groups. Joel works as a smuggler in a quarantine zone in Boston, Massachusetts with his partner Tess. Together, they hunt down Robert, a black market dealer, to recover their stolen weapons cache. However, before they kill him, Robert tells them he sold their cache to the Fireflies, a rebel militia group opposing the quarantine zone authorities. Joel and Tess find Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies, who offers to give them double their weapons cache back in return for the pair smuggling a teenage girl called Ellie to a small group of Fireflies hiding in the Massachusetts State House outside the quarantine zone, and the pair agree. While travelling across the city, Joel, Tess and Ellie are stopped by a patrol, who check if they are infected. Suddenly, Ellie freaks out and stabs the patrol guards with her knife, and Joel and Tess discover that Ellie is infected. However, Ellie claims that she was bitten by an Infected three weeks ago, and full infection occurs after a maximum of two days, meaning that Ellie is immune to the fungus, and that her immunity is the key in finding a cure to the disease. After a fight with multiple Infected in a museum, the trio make it to the State House, however all the Fireflies there have been killed. Tess starts to panic, and Joel and Ellie discover that Tess was bitten in the fight beforehand. Believing Ellie's immunity is real, Tess sacrifices herself against pursuing soldiers in order for Joel and Ellie to escape, as she would rather die then transform into an Infected. Joel decides to find Tommy, a former Firefly, in the hope he can find the remaining Fireflies and deliver Ellie to them. With the help of Bill, a fellow smuggler, the pair acquire a working vehicle. After driving into Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the pair are attacked by bandits and their car is wrecked. They ally with two brothers, Henry and Sam, in order to escape the city and make it to an abandoned radio station, where Henry and Sam claim there are supplies. Before making it to the radio station, the group are attacked by bandits and Infected, and Sam is bitten, however he hides it from the rest of the group. After spending the night in the radio station, Sam begins to turn, and attacks Ellie in the morning. Henry shoots Sam to save Ellie, however he then commits suicide out of grief. In the fall, Joel and Ellie finally find Tommy in Jackson, Wyoming, where he has assembled a fortified settlement near a hydroelectric dam with his wife Maria. Joel decides to leave Ellie with Tommy, however after she confronts him about Sarah, Joel decides to let her stay with him. Tommy gives the pair horses and tells them to go to a Fireflies enclave at the University of Colorado. When they get there, they find the university abandoned, however they discover that the Fireflies have moved to a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. However, more bandits appear and Joel is severely wounded while escaping. During the winter, Joel and Ellie shelter in the mountains. Joel in on the brink of death and relies on Ellie to care for him. After hunting a deer, Ellie comes across David and James, two scavengers willing to trade medicine for food. After Ellie and David survive an Infected attack, David turns hostile after finding out that Ellie was the child who killed the bandits at the university, who were members of his group. Ellie is chased by the group and manages to lead them away from Joel to protect him, however she is captured in the process; David intends to recruit Ellie into his cannibal group. Refusing the offer, she escapes after killing James, but David corners her in a burning restaurant. Meanwhile, Joel recovers from his wounds and sets out to find Ellie. He reaches Ellie as she kills David and breaks down crying; Joel comforts her before they flee. In the spring, Joel and Ellie arrive in Salt Lake City. After an encounter with more Infected, the pair fall into a river, and Ellie is rendered unconscious after almost drowning (since she is unable to swim), before they are captured by a Firefly patrol. In the hospital, Marlene tells Joel that Ellie is being prepared for surgery; in hope of producing a vaccination for the infection, the Fireflies must remove the infected portion of Ellie's brain, which would kill her. Unwilling to let Ellie die, Joel battles his way to the operating room and carries the unconscious Ellie to the parking garage. He is confronted by Marlene, who tells him that this is what Ellie wants, however Joel shoots and kills her to prevent the Fireflies from pursuing them. On the drive out of the city, Ellie wakes up and Joel tells her that the Fireflies had actually found dozens of people immune to the infection and have stopped looking for a cure. On the outskirts of Tommy's settlement in Jackson, Ellie reveals that she was not alone when she was infected and expresses her survivor guilt. She then tells Joel to promise that everything he told her about the Fireflies is true, in which Joel lies and swears that it is true. Left Behind The Last of Us: Left Behind'' is a side-story set during the events of the main game, but is only available in ''The Last of Us: Remastered.'' ''The plot revolves around Ellie in two different scenarios; searching for medical supplies in an abandoned mall to help Joel recover after getting wounded, and the last night Ellie and her best friend Riley had together before they were attacked by Infected. In the first story, Ellie searches an abandoned mall in the winter to help save Joel, who was severely wounded at the University of Colorado while escaping. After searching multiple stores and pharmacies with no luck, Ellie climbs onto a crashed medical helicopter after surviving an Infected outbreak. She manages to find a first aid kit and some medical supplies, and makes her way back to the abandoned store where she hid Joel. However, bandits appear as well as Infected, and Ellie can potentially use bricks and bottles to make the bandits and Infected fight each other, allowing her to sneak past the combat. Eventually, Ellie makes it back to Joel and the pair get back on their horse and ride out of the mall into the frozen wasteland, heading for shelter in the mountains. In the second, more important story, Ellie is sitting in her bedroom when her best friend Riley sneaks in through her window, however there is tension between the two after Riley became a Firefly and left for a long time. To make her feel better, Riley and Ellie sneak out the building where Ellie lives and go to a mall during the night to have some fun. The pair explore the mall, play with some Halloween masks, ride a carousel, find a joke book and play in an arcade together. Eventually, the pair have a water pistol fight, however Riley tells Ellie that she is doing this because she has to leave again tomorrow for a year. Realising how much she needs Riley in her life, Ellie begs her not to go. After their water pistol fight, the pair start dancing to some music, and Riley tells Ellie that she will stay, in which Ellie happily kisses her in return. However, as the two embrace, a herd of Infected attack the mall, and Ellie and Riley try to run to the roof. While trying to escape, Ellie falls from the rooftop window and is bitten on the arm by an Infected. Riley then shows Ellie a bite mark on her hand after trying to save her. The pair sit together and try to figure out what to do, in which Riley tells her to 'lose their minds together'. The pair reconcile and embrace as the story ends.Category:Video games Category:Action games Category:Adventure games Category:Naughty Dog games Category:Sony Computer Entertainment games Category:PlayStation games Category:PlayStation 3 games Category:PlayStation 4 games